16 comments:

I had to think about this. This is really hard to answer. I think people were created to be loving, caring people but because of sin and selfishness they are not able to truly be people who love unconditionally apart from God's grace & enabling. I know many people who I am blessed to know who are truly kind & generous hearted, but I also know others who are very selfish, self absorbed, and self centred.

Maybe your two responses are not mutually exclusive. I have a kind of selfishness that might be described as self-preservation, i.e. I eat when I am hungry and go take a nap when I am sleepy, etc. At these times I am honestly thinking only of myself. But at the same time I am loving, caring, and mindful of others. Is there a way that the answer here can be both/and?

I'm thinking that we have a mix of selfishness and self-giving, self-centeredness and generosity. As we become attuned to God, we are able to spend more time on the self-giving and generous side of the equation.

In my own life, I found that as a non-Christian I thought I and most other people were overall decent, good, and loving.

But the more I get to know the character of Christ and the nature of our awesome God, the more I realize that the best of us is a mess!

And the longer I go in my Christian walk, the more I realize what a mess we really are and how much we need grace. One of the most controversial conclusions I have made in life is the following (follow me on this one),

"There is not a single second in my life when I am being EXACTLY like Jesus. If being like Jesus is the "mark of perfection," then it stands to reason that I believe I am always missing the mark. Therefore, I am always sinning by way of missing the mark of Jesus' perfection.

And so I realize just how much I need the grace of God and rejoice in His unfailing, unlimited love and forgiveness.

I know people who are selfish and self-centered and I know people who are loving and caring.

If I had to classify the people I know pretty well one way or the other, I would say most fall into the second category. So I guess I'll side with Mike.

Interesting, all of the loving/caring folks I know will do things out of selfishness from time to time (sometimes more often than not). Not sure I can recall many times where the selfish/self-centered people I know did something out of love.

Is that the, mythical, long missing Danny Kaye? :-D I've missed seeing your name around the web.

I have to say that I agree with both, but the truth is closer to what you believe.

I think we were made for goodness with incredible capacity for love and kindness, just as God has, but we live in a broken world where sin has dominion. We are not created to live here and are ill equipped for it. We were created for the garden, but we live outside, so we are blown by the forces around us and succumb to their influences. They overpower us and we are powerless to resist.

In the end, the good put in us is smothered by the sin that surrounds us so that we appear inclined first to sin.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! - Romans 7:21-25

I'm probably going to anger a few with my words here, and I apologize in advance, I really don't mean to.

When I was a Christian, I totally agreed with Danny Kaye's position. Humans were depraved and useless without God. Of course that is a legitimate biblical position to hold, though not all Christians hold it.

Now I see how that view poisons ones view of others. As a Christian, my loving, thoughtful, non-believer friends were still wicked deep down. This, of course, wasn't me saying this, it was God through his Bible. The gorgeous infant you hold in your arms is wicked, that sweet old, non-believer lady down the street is wicked. All those members of that un-biblical church, who do wonderful outreach ministry, but don't conform to the "right" version of Christianity are wicked.

Now I see that as manipulative and cult like. That's what cults do, all outsiders are evil, even if they appear to not be so.

Maybe God does exist, but surely this divisive, elitist, exclusivity can not be of him.

Even now, some could be discounting what I say, simply because I reject Christianity.

Maybe you have experienced most people to be selfish, or maybe that's just what you expect to see, since that's what the Bible tells you to.

As to the god of the Bible's goodness, it is certainly nothing like the goodness of most humans I know, well at least few that I know are as angry and jealous as the god of the Old Testament.

I liked what you said Mike. I think that it is a bad theology that causes someone to look down their nose at people they do not deem "Christians".. IMO it is a huge problem and a big reason that people reject Christians and dismiss their views.

I do think that the view you describe is more representative of a fundamentalist view of Christianity and the bible. Many Christians reject such a view and try to love everyone regardless of their problems.. selfishness included :)

I am thankful that you got me thinking on that last post. I can see how negative that "all people are selfish" view is. I want to be someone who always sees the best in people. Whether someone is selfish or not should not taint my commitment to love them.

I'm afraid you mistake me. I don't believe Jesus looked at babies and thought, "Ugh! What an evil waste of flesh this thing is." The baby is pure, sinless, and innocent. He absolutely LOVED kids! There will be a time, thought, when that baby will eventually grow up and become accountable for his/her actions and will eventually sin. And as far as the little old lady goes, He loves her too. I can think of a number of passages that show Jesus loving old ladies and holding them up as examples of faith.

I believe there needs to be a clarification on the definition of the word "wicked." Biblically, anyone who has soiled his soul with even one sin is "wicked" in comparison with the perfection of Jesus.

Quote: "Maybe God does exist, but surely this divisive, elitist, exclusivity can not be of him."Agreed. It is not from Jesus. It's just one more sin that we humans practice in our daily lives. From my perspective, we are all in the same boat. You and I are no more or less wicked than anyone else. Niether of us has a leg to stand on. Niether of us is able to defend ourselves before God.

(Caution: This part gets preachy. Read at your own will.)I don't reject what you say because it's reality. Christianity has, over the years, been marred by an "I'm in, so I'm good...you're out, so you're bad" mindset. I'm grieved that, as a younger Christian, I had slipped into that mindset, alienating people from Christ instead of attracting them to Him with His love.

But surely you realize that when Christians behave in such a way, they are not acting in accordance with the truth of Christ, but instead with humanistic pride and ignorance. I don't know you from Adam's housecat. And I certainly don't know your history with regard to Christianity and why you walked away from it. But I do know, based on your comment, that you spent perhaps too little time focusing on Jesus and a little too much time focusing on His followers.

"I do know, based on your comment, that you spent perhaps too little time focusing on Jesus and a little too much time focusing on His followers."

Actually, very little of my focus as a Christian was on believers, except in somehow trying to help meet their needs. Certainly there were and are those who claim Christ who are an embarrassment to others.

The actions of other believers had very little to do with my faith aside from encouragement. Those who behaved poorly and claimed Christ were just imperfect sinners like myself who had stumbled into some poor behavior.

"I don't believe Jesus looked at babies and thought, "Ugh! What an evil waste of flesh this thing is." The baby is pure, sinless, and innocent. He absolutely LOVED kids! There will be a time, thought, when that baby will eventually grow up and become accountable for his/her actions and will eventually sin."

I didn't think you thought that at all, but now I have to ask, do you believe in original sin and can you provide scriptural support for the age of accountability or do you believe that independently of what Scripture says?

I never looked at non-believers and said "Ugh" either, I did, however, believe that they were all, like me, depraved and useless without God.

Towards the end of my faith I had a more open view, but by then my quest for a more tangible God seemed to grow more futile every day. I'm still waiting for God to make his presence known to me, but as I say in my profile "I simply do not experience anything in my life that I would identify as God, but wouldn't ignore a grand revelation."

Short answer is, "Yes...and no." Although there is no mention of it specifically in the Scriptures, I don't believe it independently of them.

There is a certain amount of logic that we must apply when it comes to children and at what point they might be accountable for their actions/sins.

There are many passages that speak about how a sinner is to be forgiven (Acts 2:38, Romans 10:9, Romans 6:4...etc). And no matter whether a person believes in baptism for salvation (as I do), or simply saying a prayer for salvation, or any of the other methods some believe the Bible to teach, they all require either an action, a response, a verbal statement, an understanding of Christ and the cross (or some combination of these) in order to be applied. And though I am thoroughly convinced that a baby can't possibly respond, state, or understand the simplicity nor the complexity of the cross, I am equally convinced that, at some point in a person's life, he/she is able to grasp it and choose to go against God.

QUOTE:"Actually, very little of my focus as a Christian was on believers, except in somehow trying to help meet their needs."I apologize if I read too much into your statement. As I said, I don't know you, and I should probably have left it at that. Please forgive.

I think we both read too much in each other's statements, Danny Kaye. I think it's too easy to make assumptions when we see certain statements or terms that would mean something different when said by a fundamentalist/extremist from any viewpoint. I apologize as well.

I thought much like you do on the issue of the age of accountability, when I was a Christian. Though I didn't believe baptism was necessary for salvation. Not that my opinion on that would matter now. ;-)

about bob

I am married, have two children and two grandchildren. I have worked as a soldier, technician, software designer and a pastor. I am now retired. My purpose in writing here is to share devotional thoughts from the scriptures. Check out the menu and icons above for more info.